The Family Man

2000 Nicolas Cage movie

Rating: 10/20

Jack Campbell's got it all! He's a hotshot businessman with a high rise apartment, a Ferrari, and sleek underpants. On Christmas Eve, on the verge of a gazillion dollar merger, he decides to buy eggnog on the way home and has a run-in with a punk trying to rob the eggnog store. He tells the punk that he has no regrets in life, and the punk looks at him knowingly, so knowingly that you realize he's not a punk at all but actor Don Cheadle. When Jack wakes up the next day, his apartment's turned into a home in the suburbs, his Ferrari has become a mini-van, and his bikini briefs have transformed into boxers. He's married to his former sweetheart, has a pair of kids, and sells tires for his father-in-law's business. Oh, snap! He tries his best to figure out what the hell's going on so that he can return to his normal life.

What if. . .

I had decided to watch a different movie, say The Projected Man or Little Big Man or maybe Encino Man?

it was discovered that Nicolas Cage was not only the nephew of Martin Scorsese but the son of the guy he looks exactly like on the above poster, Jimmy Stewart?

Frank Capra had come up with this idea, the idea of a character seeing how his life would be different if different choices would be made, and filmed this sixty years ago?

Jack Campbell's skull would have suddenly caught fire and he hopped on a motorcycle and started hunting down bad guys?

I got a second chance to watch this movie for the first time?

Tea Leoni's shower scene would have been over an hour long?

this movie didn't have big chunks that made absolutely no sense?

Jack Campbell's really odd behavior in his new life wouldn't have been so awkward that his wife and friends would have had him committed?

this wouldn't have been so episodic, so chunky?

this movie wouldn't have had "man" in the title?

I had a heart and not groaned audibly when, after playing a ten second game of chase in an area no bigger than ten square feet, Jack Campbell's daughter, who previously thought that aliens had taken her real daddy, said, "I knew you'd come back"?

I fell asleep halfway through this and missed the ending, therefore never ever figuring out what happened to Jack Campbell, a character I had trouble caring about anyway?

the above poster wouldn't have been so silly and never inspired me to make fun of it in this blog entry?

I told you that, similar to how his father Jimmy Stewart is best in movies when he's really angry, Nicolas Cage is at his best when his character is frustrated by confusion?

Nicolas Cage's line "Is this like a Christmas [big pause] JOKE?" had been answered with a gigantic "Yes!" by a narrator and followed immediately by the sudden appearance of an accordion quintet whose playing inspired the characters and two dozen elves to dance for the remaining hour of the movie?

this idea would have been handled by a writer, director, and actors who were far more competent?

4 comments:

cory
said...

I generally liked this more than you did, though it rips off a far superior film. I could have done without the tasteless way it introduced me to the phrase "camel toe" and then proceeded to beat it to death. Overall, a 13.

By the way, if you can go by commercials, the new wizard movie starring Cage looks to be his worst acting performance yet. He is not even trying.